Agriculture Reference
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Natural low-calorie sweeteners
J. C. Fry, Connect Consulting, UK
Abstract: Natural low-calorie sweeteners have received renewed attention with
the toxicological acceptance and commercial development of steviol glycosides in
the West. Excluding the simple sugars and polyols, there are 100 or more sweet
compounds found in nature. However, the majority of these have little prospect of
becoming commercial ingredients because they fail to meet one or more key criteria
for commercial success. This chapter concentrates on the small number of natural,
low-calorie sweeteners that either are, or are likely to become, commercially
successful. Others that may be encountered in the literature are mentioned briefl y for
completeness.
Key words: natural, low-calorie, high-potency sweetener, bulk sweetener.
3.1 Introduction
3.1.1 Low-calorie sweeteners
Sugars are taken to have a calorifi c value of 4 kcal/g. A low-calorie sweetener is
one that delivers the same sweetness as sucrose while providing less energy. There
are two classes of these, namely bulk sweeteners and high-potency sweeteners.
Bulk sweeteners generally have a potency of one or less on a scale where sucrose,
the international reference standard, is deemed to have a potency of one. That is
to say, bulk low-calorie sweeteners are generally rather less sweet than sucrose
but are used in similar amounts to sucrose to sweeten products.
In contrast, high-potency sweeteners (HPS) are much more effective at
sweetening than sucrose on a weight-for-weight basis. HPS are commonly, and
inaccurately, called high intensity sweeteners. The inaccuracy lies in the fact that it
is generally impossible with HPS to achieve truly high intensities of sweetness -
say above about 15% sucrose equivalent (SE). Nevertheless, HPS exhibit potencies
from the low tens (of times the sweetening power of sucrose) to - in the case of
some synthetic molecules - hundreds of thousands. Because of this highly effective
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